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Monday, 6 March 2017

MQI Sewing Day Recap!

This past Saturday we had our meet up day in Limerick. It had been over 2 years since our sewing day in Galway so it was really lovely to get to spend the day sewing and chatting with Modern Irish Quilters we might only know through Instagram!

Our venue being in Limerick meant that quite a few of us only had to travel over the Shannon to meet up but some came from Wexford, Dublin and the Kingdom of Co. Kerry! We were hit with tummy flu and last minute family commitments so our number of 15 signed up for the day dwindled to 7 but we made the most of it!

We spent most of the day talking, and eating chocolate goodies and talking some more! Having a smaller group meant that most of the chat was all of us together which also meant there wasn't a moment when one of the seven of use weren't chatting! Seven told us all about his recent visit to QuiltCon and we are all thinking about saving to go ourselves in 3 years time. Paula filled us in on the European quilt shows and shared with us quilt stories from her recent exhibition in Mexico city.

We had a brilliant show and tell. Seven showed us a modern quilt with metallic looking silk fabric and his brilliant I'm OK quilt. Every block has I'm OK in it in some new from, from text to Morse code to Braille - this was really fun to get up close to!

Aideen shared with us her paper pieced cushion.

I really love this and want to make one giant sized as a one block quilt for our sofa!

Paula showed one of her quilts from Mexico from her Momento Mori series and explained to us the old Catholic tradition of carrying a reminder of death with you to make you live each day to the fullest. Paula's series of skull quilts are made up of her favourite objects and this one is made up of lots and lots of individual lady birds layered on top.

We also got to see the skull Share Jane quilt that Paula co-ordinated a huge collaboration of over 100 people to make blocks for 3 different versions of the traditional Dear Jane quilt. This was stunning to see in person.

Rita showed us a modern advent wall hanging for Christmas time and had photos of a fantastic modern quilt she made for her sister. It took her 6 months to make a double sided wedding quilt. It took me two years to make a one sided Swoon and Paula trumped us all by taking 7 years to make her sisters wedding quilt!

We all oohed and ahhed over this Fleur de Lis pattern which Rita is making by machine and hand piecing fabrics from her life, like table cloths and clothes. The softness of the palette and vintage feel appealed to us all.

Louise is working in her Rainbow Rose made with a low volume background and is adding borders to make a bigger quilt. She shared with us also some fabric printing pieces and her progress on a piece for Aurora, the IPS co-exhibition with the Northern Ireland Patchwork Guild in May

I didn't know what to bring for Show and Tell so I settled for my favourite quilt. I can't tell you why this little Charm Pack Cherry with Noteworthy and neutral fabrics is my favourite, it just makes me happy when I pick it up. I like it so much our Basset hounds haven't had even a sniff at it (Charly our Jack Russell may have sat on it once!) and being only 5ft tall it keeps me warm watching telly but is useless to anyone else in the house!

My second piece was this quilt I'm hoping to have finished for Fun's April 27th submission date! It's a play on traditional blocks made modern and I had so much fun with colour on this one. Only 1 block was left traditional (the Ohio star!), everything else has had a modern slant applied to it. We decided a dark grey binding might be the way to finish it off.

Suzanne shared her progress on a piece of Jupiter and its moons and we talked about facing rather than binding it in black to not lock in that gorgeous red curve.

And on the day, despite all the talking and eating, I don't know how she did it but Suzanne finished a jelly roll quilt top!

Seven kindly held it up for photographing and we decided we liked it better vertical than horizontal.

Thank you to all who helped out to make our sewing day a success. Suzanne made tote bags for us all in red and green Cath Kidston fabric, Louise and Seven brought scrummy home baked goodies and Paula kept us well topped up with tea & coffee!

Photos shamelessly robbed from Louise and Aideens instagram feeds!

Given our number we all got spot prizes in the raffle to add to our goodie bags!

I really enjoyed seeing all your efforts to make something you all like. You all did a fantastic job! I have been doing a lot of embroidery lately. When I am done, I'll send you a picture of my quilt.Keep up the good work!